Tag: work

It’s been a mostly quiet weekend, but I did get to go out for a few beers with some friends last night. I actually made a new contact and friend who I hope to see again soon. Tomorrow will be one of my longer days at the internship. I have a meeting with my project manager to go over what I’ve been doing, and I want to make sure that I present all my data to him in a nice concise manner. I’ll go in a little earlier than I would have planned otherwise just to write that all up for him. I also need to add a bit more information that I got late on Friday to the flow that I am making. Hopefully it’ll all look okay.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, I’ll be sure to post more later this week.

This has been one heck of a weekend. Friday night was spent with some of my oldest friends. We hung out and listened to some good music and talked about current politics. One of my friends has rather sharply contrasting views to myself, but we always have really interesting talks. I wish this was the case for everyone who has different opinions from one another. He’s one of my best friends, but we’ll likely never vote for the same person or policy ever. That’s perfectly fine, and I always look forward to hearing his opinions and using them to challenge my own thoughts. I’d like to think that he views my opinions similarly.

On Saturday, some friends of mine from undergrad came up to the city and we had a few beers, played Mario Tennis and Rock Band, then we went to a karaoke bar and sang our hearts out. It was a really fun time. Earlier today I met up with a friend and her boyfriend that I was very close within my Department. We got to geek out about anthropology over lunch (I got French Toast), and just catch up since I had not seen her since I left for the UK over a year and a half ago. Tonight, I’m off to play a little bit of pool with another one of my friends. He and I have tried to hang out for literal weeks and something else has always gotten in the way. Then tomorrow I go into my part time gig and start knuckling down on the project they’ll give me. Wish me luck!

What a week so far. At the beginning of last week The job I interviewed for in NYC got back to me saying that they were still considering the role and filling it, but that they would still let me know either way. This is somewhat frustrating, but I do understand that things take time. While I was out with my friend this weekend, he told me that my old company may be looking for someone to fill a UX researcher/designer type role in the company and that it might be worth emailing the old CEO. Luckily I’ve maintained a rather good professional relationship with the CEO and he put me in contact with the VP of marketing who said they may have some part time work in the very near future I could do for them. While part time work is less than ideal, the VP did tell me that while I had a strong academic background, I was lacking in the professional research experience area. Apparently translating academic research is rather challenging in résumé format. So if offered the position, I may take it even if it just is part time. I like the idea of adding that kind of experience to bolster my professional résumé.

I also heard back from an employment agency which may have found a position is HR for me with a rather well known hedge fund management company. I’ve sent some follow up questions about compensation and so forth, but would also consider this if I don’t hear back from the aforementioned position. Income wouldn’t be a bad thing, you know.

A friend of mine and I also are half jokingly looking at teaching English in Costa Rica. This would not really work for me though, considering how poorly compensated those teachers are and the fact that I still need to pay my student loans off.

I want to get back to my book, but figured I needed to post on this blog more frequently. Cheers.

I tried to take a quick break from the hectic application and self enrichment processes of my life today. Unfortunately exciting news of my friend’s acceptance into UC Davis for her PhD program set me into near full on freak out. I am really excited for her, but damn does light a fire under my chair. This wasn’t before half the day was already spent in a leisurely manner. I’ll do my best to make this weekend more productive, to make up for not working as hard as I probably should have today.

I went to starbucks again, but chose to begin reading Nothing is True and Everything is Possible, which is a book by Peter Pomerantsev about how Modern Russian media acts as an effective propaganda arm for the Kremlin. It’s a terrifyingly good read. I do hope that this is not a looking glass into the future of the American life. I’m only a few chapters in, but it was hard to put down the book earlier today! It’s nice to do some reading just for fun, even if they are just a bit worrying.

Next Friday I’ll be going to a seminar at U of C to try to keep in academic gear for a little bit. I really miss the world of academia, because I really liked it. In fact, I really miss the buildings of UCL. Pretty old buildings that I can use to read, write, learn, and hang out with friends and colleagues, it was amazing. Anyway, I’ll include some screenshots of Fallout for everyone, as post with photos seem to get a few more views! Enjoy everyone!

This has been one of my less productive weekends extending into Tuesday that I’ve had in a long time. Mind you, I did do a fair amount of work yesterday. Those gains feel swamped by the large level of nothing else having gotten done Friday to Sunday, then Today as well. I should explain: my birthday was on Sunday. Friday and Saturday were spent with friends to celebrate this fact, and Sunday was largely a day of recovery from the boisterous festivities from the previous two days. I was extremely tired. I have yet to do my analytics homework or my coding for today. I intend to do those before I go to sleep.

I began watching some of the new version of Top Gear, “The Grand Tour” on amazon. I must say, it’s not nearly as bad as I was anticipating. However, the age of these gentlemen are definitely beginning to show. I do hope to be kicking it like that when I get old enough too though so, I don’t blame them for wanting to keep the show going.

In other news, I’m waiting to hear back about a job I interviewed for! I think it went pretty well, but I know that they had many other qualified -potentially more so than I- candidates so I am eagerly awaiting a probable rejection, but hoping for an expected offer. That would be delightful! It’s digital content management, which is terribly interesting, and it’s in New York City, which I would relish the adventure of living in. Wish me luck, eh guys?

Below is a picture of CIT from Fallout 4, which is essentially MIT. Fallout has gotten a little annoying as of late. All of my settlements suddenly are under constant attack and it prevents me from furthering any other storyline. It’s rubbish.

I know it’s been a few days since I’ve written. Sorry about that, I was at the women’s March on Saturday and my friend had a birthday this weekend. These things took up a lot of my time. Honestly I also was just having a bit of trouble thinking about what to write. My life isn’t that interesting right now, I’m just applying for jobs and working on coding and languages. I’ve widened my job search to jobs that are not only in my field. While I dislike the idea of not putting my Master’s degree to use right away, this keeps large gaps from appearing in my résumé and for whatever reason this is important in the US. I promised myself though that whatever job I do get first, I will never stop thinking about my PhD and will never stop advancing my understanding of my field and discipline.

I received a new coin in the mail today. I decided to purchase the 2016 Canadian Silver Maple Leaf BU coin. I had the 2015 one and want to keep the collection going sequentially. I’ll take some nicer photos of my coins soon to post on this site for you guys. In the meantime, here’s a photo of a road barrier made from a repurposed railroad track. I posted it to /r/mildlyinteresting and it didn’t receive much love. Perhaps you guys will like it more.

It’s getting chillier in Chicago, and the rain today doesn’t help. However, I love being inside on days like this. I have a pain au chocolat and my coffee to keep me warm while I apply for jobs, read, and write.

The coffee and pastry in question!

I heard back from one of the jobs I applied for early last week. They requested I take an aptitude test and a personality test to see if I fit their performance and cultural criteria. I think I did alright, but that “two back” memory test was brutal. Hopefully I did better than I think I did. Ah well, worst comes to worst I don’t get that job and have to continue my search for employment.

The parts for my computer are starting to come in and I’m incredibly excited. I haven’t built a computer in YEARS and I haven’t played a videogame on the computer in about 2 years as well. I’m even thinking about streaming my plays or video capturing some of it to make into youtube videos. I would never do it for like, money, but I think it would be fun to make some content and share it. Kind of like what I do on wordpress. I know it will never make me money, but I enjoy creating content.